Kyo's Bane
by Squibakou
Summary: Shigure has given Kyo a Rubix cube. Solving one is never easy, but Kyo is determined to try, by ANY means possible. Challenge fic from N. James the Diehard Dishrag and Elia Blackcat. [It's not really 'horror' genre folks, I was kidding]


**A/R (Author's ramblings):** Bonjour, this be Squibakou! N. James the Diehard DishRag and Elia Black-cat at points, have challenged me to write a Kyo plus Rubix cube fic, and this is the result. Enjoy!

Just so you know, I dedicate this to N. James the Diehard Dishrag, Elia Black-cat and CrazyRandomPeopleThatStalkYou (our combined penname). Worship them and read their stories. (Elia Black-cat does brilliant angsty songfic+story fics. N. James the Diehard Dishrag does original-style Fruits Basket fics and likes to kill off unnecessary characters.) Mad love for us!

**Disclaimer:** I'd gladly admit to owning Fruits Basket but alak, alas and so forth, I do not. I own only the happenings of my mind and its produce. Of which I am fairly proud.

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**Kyo's Bane.**

"Kyo!" called Shigure, "Ooooooh, Kyo-kun! I have something for you!"

Shigure danced from room to room, chanting Kyo's name in a song-like voice. His kimono sleeves flapped like wings as he finally swung himself through the door of Kyo's bedroom.

"Get out, you buffoon. Before I am forced to do something I really, _really _want to do," growled Kyo, not even looking up at him.

"But - but Kyo-kun." Shigure whimpered. Eyes teared up, but beneath the water-works lurked a malicious glint.

Kyo remained unresponsive, but the severe beating he was giving the punch bag (training, folks) increased tenfold. Shigure could see his irritation escalating and felt his presence was, just maybe, annoying Kyo. Ah well.

"Kyo, I have a prrrrrrresent for you!" sang Shigure, cheering up.

Kyo stopped and turned slowly to face him, face set in a rigid manner. "Prrrrrrrrr? PRRRRRRRR! Are you patronising me you slimy good-for-nothing mutt! Answer me, God damnit!"

"No, no. I'd _never_ do that. I merely wished to prrrrresent you with this prrrrrrresent."

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Shigure felt that a job well done should always end up with him face down in the garden. As he brushed himself off, he regarded the hole in the wall thoughtfully before thinking it better to fix it himself, rather than ask Kyo to do it. He could see Kyo's anger-reddened face shouting at him through the man-shaped tear. Shigure sighed apon hearing the string of obscenities that reached his innocent ears. Kyo would really benefit from his present, he thought. A nice relaxing game.

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Kyo resumed his punch bag torturing once Shigure had, erm, left. Though he'd been meaning to stop shortly after Shigure's interruption, the infuriating dog had fuelled his anger to the point that hitting something was really the only way to go. Once either the bag or his hands had given up (neither would admit who went first) he sat cross-legged on the floor and picked up Shigure's discarded gift.

"What did the idiot do this time?" he asked himself.

The present was a small box wrapped in a shiny, slippery paper that reflected light into a rainbow of colours. A frilly bow was wound around it, tied at the top. Though the wrapping paper was decent (though not to Kyo's tastes), the wrapper was obviously not. Shigure's attempts were pitiful at best. Corners stuck out and tape could be seen where the paper was torn. It bulged strangely in places and even Kyo could have done better at the bow tying. Who puts a frilly bow on a present for a boy anyway?

"Incompetent _baka_."

Kyo opened the present in a matter of seconds to reveal a strange looking cube. It was made up of lots of smaller multicoloured squares that fitted together mysteriously to make the bigger shape. A note was taped to the top.

"Dear Kyo,

I felt that your time spent ruining my house could be better spent on this. It is called a Rubix cube, if you didn't know. The purpose of it is to put all the same coloured squares together on one side (so as one side is red, one is green, one is blue etc.). This is a challenge Kyo and I _will _be checking up on your progress.

Sincerely, Shigure"

Kyo growled and chucked the puzzle into a corner. _If he thinks I'm gonna fall for that one, he is sadly mistaken. He 'will be checking up on my progress', Hah! Like I care. _His thoughts continued along this track as he got up and fetched some Math homework he had to do. As he sat cross-legged on the floor and started to strain his brain over formulas and quadratic equations he couldn't help but glance over at the rubix cube, sitting in the corner.

_He thinks I won't do it, he thinks I _**can't** _do it. I should show him, I should, I should, I WILL. _

Kyo jumped at the realisation if what he was thinking. He shook his head to clear these unruly thoughts from his mind.

_What am I saying? That dog probably knew that his challenge would get to me. Well not this time buster, no way. Now I know what he knows, and it's not going to work. But wait, what if he knows that I know that he knows? What if this is all part of his plan to see me fail? He'd never let it go! He'd hound me about it for the rest of my life!_

Kyo imagined himself 60 years from now, hobbling at top speed up a hill – Shigure not far behind yelling in a wavering voice, "Hey, hey, remember that time, remember it?The time you couldn't do a simple puzzle, hah! That was funny, wasn't it, wasn't it!"

Kyo shuddered.

"He's not going to fool me _this_ time!" he said, snatching up the offending box, homework forgotten. "We'll see who can't remember doing what!" He began twisting and turning the sections in avid concentration. Fingers flew and colours danced, and Kyo sat in his room transfixed by the game.

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Shigure chuckled gleefully. Kyo should be giving in just about _now. _Little did he know that he knew that Kyo knew that he knew that Kyo knew that he knew. Kyo was doomed from the start.

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Tohru was getting worried. Kyo hadn't been down for lunch _or_ dinner, and staring at the cold lonely remains of his meals only heightened her concern. She wandered into the living room to find Shigure sitting at the table reading a newspaper.

"Shigure-san?"

He turned round and regarded her over his reading glasses. "Yes, Tohru-kun?"

"I'm worried about Kyo, he's not been down since this morning. Is he sick, do you think?"

"Not since morning, you say?" asked Shigure, "Hmmmmm." He grinned, "I wouldn't worry Tohru-kun. I gave him a little something to do for me, it's seems he's taking this more seriously than I would have thought."

She sighed, relieved, "That's all okay-dokey then. I'll just put his dinner in the bin then?"

Shigure nodded in agreement. As she turned to leave his eyes wandered to the ceiling where Kyo's bedroom was, and he smiled impishly at his thoughts.

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"He. Will. **Not**. Win. He. Will. **Not**. Beat. Me." Kyo snarled under his breath, sweat dripping down his face, eyes boring into a multicoloured cube on the floor infront of him. For the previous nine hours and 43 minutes he'd been struggling to solve the infernal puzzle-box. From time to time he found that all but two colours were missing from one side. But, try as he might, there seemed to be no way of getting all the colours to go together. It was time, he felt, to try other methods.

Standing up, he grabbed the rubix cube and marched down the stairs, a determined look on his face. As he prowled the hallway leading to the kitchen, he caught a glimpse of Shigure sitting in his study. He frowned, the sight of his tormentor only increasing his determination. Tip-toeing past the study, he entered the kitchen and switched on the oven. Leaving it to heat up he took out a tray from the cupboard and placed the rubix cube in its centre.

_What in the-name-of -raspberry-flavoured-onigiri is he doing? _Thought Shigure, peeking round the door.

Kyo cackled madly, then hissed as he heard the sound of running feet behind him. Whirling round like a startled cat, he perceived the fleeting remains of a grey kimono hem as it darted away.

Still highly-strung from the encounter and insanely tired to boot, his mind was not in the best of shapes. Intense slitted eyes glared with a mad twinkle, red-rimmed against pale sweaty skin. His hair hung in damp orange strands which stuck to his forehead. The voice he now used only to chuckle frenziedly or growl with was ragged and punctuated by bouts of heavy breathing or coughing.

This cube-maddened figure wrenched the door of the oven open and slid the tray holding the rubix cube into it. As he shut the door he turned the power up to its full heat and, still laughing softly, he left for his bed….

…Only to find the rubix cube sitting on his bedside table when he woke up the next morning.

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Shigure looked up as he heard the crash of someone falling out of bed. Pushing his reading glasses further up the bridge of his nose, he shook out the morning paper and stared pointedly at it. The words blurred in his effort to listen to the happenings upstairs.

A few minutes later… 

Tohru came in to find Shigure apparently assuming he could read the newspaper with his nostrils. His eyes had roamed to the ceiling but still continued moving back and forth in a reading motion. The grin, revealing slightly pointed incisors, and the fact that he was swaying slightly, only added to the image of a half deranged kookaburra in an electric storm (don't ask).

"Sh-Shigure-san?"

Her meek inquiry was greeted with Shigure turning slowly towards her, still swaying, grinning and attempting to read an invisible newspaper. The results were inevitable.

Tohru's scream of terror brought Shigure crashing down out of his maniacal reverie. His eyes seemed reluctant at first to stop their dancing (when the actual words being read were gone that didn't stop them, did it?) but a firm hand in the matter plus excessive blinking forced them into focus. Just in time to see a horrified Tohru run shrieking from the room and an extremely emotional Kyo run in.

"What is WRONG with this thing!" he yelled, holding up the offending object in a shaking paw. He marched up to Shigure, eyes saying it all really: _Talk. Now. Or play dead._

Shigure held up innocent arms in defence. "Kyo-kyo, please calm down! It's just a game, no need to get violent!"

Kyo laughed maniacally, not for the first time.

"This…this is not _just _a game, it's alive I tell you! Alive! And it thinks it can win. Oh yes, it thinks it can beat me, it thinks that I thinks it's just a game. Just a game, HA! It's alive, yes, yesssss, living cubes will take over the world! And don'ts you says I didn't warn ya's, I knew, I knew…." Kyo walked of, the puzzle box gripped tightly in his hands. He occasionally bowed down to whisper threats at its glossy surface, and even bending forward slightly to put his ear against it, listening for a reply that will never come. We hope.

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Kyo set off to the Sohma estate, in search of help. Or a padded room far away from anything square, whichever came first. The large wooden gates looked uninviting, to say the least. Understandably, Kyo usually refrained from ever going to the Sohma estate, but this was an emergency. Heaving open the door he took his first steps into the vast domain.

"Kyo-kuuuuun? Is it really you!" screamed a rapidly approaching ball of furious love with a cat-shaped bag on its back.

Kyo stumbled back, searching for an escape route, but it was too late. She pounced, and between the onslaught of confessions of undying love and the combined beating he had an epiphany. Nice timing.

"Kagura-, um, chan?"

This was greeted with a renewal in the emotional outbursts, now coupled with bone-crushing hugs. Kyo's extensive knowledge of martial arts had, as usual, no effect whatsoever.

When Kagura had finally calmed down and Kyo had pieced himself back together she asked, "Kyo-kun? Why are you here?"

He nodded seriously and pulled from his pocket the rubix cube of doom. (Doom, I say!) Just seeing it made him react in incontrollable fits of disturbing laughter. But it was OK, he calmed down soon after. In an alarmingly sudden way.

"Kagura?"

"Yes, my love?"

He looked at her, head tilted to one side, a deceivingly blank look on his face.

"I'm sorry to say but I have fallen in love with Tohru and intend to marry her and live a rich and cultured life with-her-for-the-rest-of-my-days." He had to hurry at the end for fear of not finishing his speech before his quick and painful death.

As she leaped he used his trained avoid-Kagura reflexes to, well, avoid Kagura, placing, instead, in her unstoppable path towards his immediate destruction, the rubix cube. The ensuing cloud of furious beating was observed (from a safe distance, of course) by Kyo. When it cleared Kyo peered in closely, only to find a bedraggled Kagura attempting to chew her own leg off. Beside her sat the rubix cube. Completely unharmed.

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Breathlessly, from the whole running-for-his-life thing, he arrived back at Shigure's home. Sliding open the door and kicking off his shoes with such force that they went right through the floor, he charged up the stairs. Shigure barely looked up as he felt the breeze whooshing past the door, he'd learned the art of appearing uninterested. The trick was to watch television, which could numb any lingering interest in the happenings around him.

Kyo slammed back his bedroom door, sat cross-legged on the floor and stared at the rubix cube in concentrated despair, with a little psychosis added in for flavour.

_Now what do I do? _He asked himself. _If I give up, the world will be overtaken by all things square and evil (_the trolley has left the building_), I can't let that happen. They don't know it, but I warns 'em, I warns 'em, but they don't listen to poor crazy kitty-boy. No-sirr-ie! I can solve this by ma-self then._

Decided, he stood up and faced the sunset, cube in hand. Proffering it to the sky, he cried, "I WILL SOLVE THIS, ONCE AND FOR ALL!" sitting back down, he grumbled, "And you knows it."

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Shigure woke up in the early hours of the morning to the sound of maniacal laughter and the whooshing of a hard object connecting with an even harder object. He groaned and looked out the window. In the shadow filled garden he could see the dark silhouette of Kyo, wielding a cricket bat. Sweat poured off his face, and his hands shook as he raised the bat over his head, bringing it down moments later with a resounding crash.

Shigure peered into the gloom, trying to catch sight of Kyo's victim. His attempts were greatly aided by the sunken glowing eyes that lightened Kyo's face in an exceedingly disturbing way.

On the dark grass sat a small box. That was all that Shigure needed. He was about to go back to bed, reassured by the certainty that a mere cricket bat could never solve the puzzle, when he saw Kyo flinging down the bat in disgust. Intrigued at what he would do next, Shigure decided to stay and watch.

Kyo giggled and wiped his forehead with an equally sweaty hand. _Why did I think I could do this? _He thought despondently. _I'll just get rid of it. Yeah, that's what I'll do. I'll hide it so no one can ever find it again! Bwahahahahahahaha, aha, ha, HA!_

Kyo pounced on the rubix cube as if he expected it to run away from him. Gripping it in his teeth, he crouched and started clawing at the ground with his nails. Desperately, he tore up chunks of grass and earth, dislodging worms and beetles from their homes in the dirt. He dug like a maniac, showering the surrounding area in pebbles and clumps of the unknown.

When he regarded the hole to be big enough, he ceremoniously placed the rubix cube in its final resting place, covered it up, and said a few words.

"Try contact your fellow alien scum _now! _Don't think you'll be getting out of there anytime soon. Ha!" he added a final bout of laughter for emphasis and trotted up the path, his bat perched on his shoulder, looking for all the world like a soldier coming back from single-handedly winning the war.

Shigure chuckled as he heard Kyo coming in, humming happily. _Time_, he thought, _to interfere._

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For the second time in as many days, Kyo awoke to find the rubix cube sitting on his bedside table. Screaming he untangled himself from his covers and flung the puzzle box out the window, only to have it bounce back off the glass and hit him squarely (ha ha) on the forehead.

When he regained consciousness, he quickly got dressed. Then he slowly got dressed, as he found his head to be no place for a sock and T-shirts required sleeves.

The now fully and correctly attired Kyo wearily trudged down the stairs, cube on head since his hands had appeared to have given up all hope and refused point blank to carry the thing.

"Still not solved it?" called Shigure from the kitchen. Kyo merely shot death lasers at him from his eyes and sat down.

"Not much sleep?" asked Shigure, an agonising amount of hint-hint, nudge-nudge, wink-wink in his voice.

Kyo's only response was a grunt, followed by a snort with a dash of snuffle.

Shigure waited, he knew it would come.

Realisation dawned like a sunrise over Slowsville. Not very quickly, but impressive to watch. Expressions flickered over Kyo's face, settling at last on something somewhere between very, very angry and mind-blowingly furious.

"It was you! You dug it up! You put it on my table! You lost all feeling in your limbs!"

"Huh?" queried Shigure, eloquently.

"Oh wait…that hasn't happened yet. Here, let me help!"

Kyo assisted Shigure to the best of his ability. Just before he left though, he whispered in what could possibly be called Shigure's ear, "_Don't think you've won. Oh no. _I _have a plan."_

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Tohru was beginning to worry about Kyo. More specifically, she was beginning to worry about the giant drill in the garden.

And the wrecking ball.

And the expanse of heavy machinery approaching Shigure's house at a rapid pace.

Well, wouldn't you worry?

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Kyo could not see how Hiro, Kisa, Haru, Ayame, Momiji, Hatori, Kagura or Ritsu were unable to drive a steamroller. It couldn't be _that _hard, could it? No different from driving a car (although he'd never driven one himself). He sighed, they were all hopeless.

_A few minutes later…_

After they pulled Kyo out of the wreckage, and returned the heavy machinery along with a substantial cheque to the builders' shop, the zodiac members decided to go inside and have some tea. Tohru appeared delighted at this turn of affairs.

Tea was served, all chamomile, except one which had several 'relaxing' pills dissolved in it. Momiji produced a box of sweet biscuits from some hidden compartment on his person and everyone relaxed. Even Kyo, but tranquillisers do that to you.

"This has all been very interesting," commented Hatori, dryly, "but I would prefer it if I weren't woken up at dawn and dragged forcefully to a building site." He tilted his head, and smiled slightly.

'_He's furious.' _Thought the congregation, backing away as much as is possible when you're sitting down. Ayame felt it was time to interfere, he was wrong. (what's new?)

"Hatori-kun, don't get mad at poor little Kyo! He is simply asking for our help. We should embrace his needs and go forth and save our deprived friend from his anguish!" he turned, all smiles and flippy hair, to Kyo, "Now, what is the problem?"

Kyo raised his puffy, yellow, slitted eyes to Ayame's face. They lingered over his moist eyed expression, before travelling towards his forehead. _That has to be the thickest skull on the planet, _he thought. Then he had another thought. The thinking stopped there, to leave room for the throwing of the cube and the calculating of the trajectory of his aim and the inevitable THUNK of Ayame hitting the floor.

Nobody seemed particularly upset about the ordeal. In fact, the subsequent silence was punctuated with sighs of relief.

Kyo sat down cross-legged on the floor, cube on lap. "Anyone else got an idea?" he queried brightly. They all stared at the rubix puzzle sitting on Kyo's lap, looking good as new. Then they stared at Ayame lying unconscious on the floor. They put two and two together and made three and a half. A half point was taken away because they didn't add on the fact that Kyo had locked the door, preventing their means of escape. Curling up in the corner also had no effect on the calculation.

Kyo advanced. "I'm open to suggestions!" he screamed at them, grinning and spitting. "Whoever has an idea can go home. But if you don't…" He pointed at the cube meaningfully.

Shaking hands saluted the air. Kyo pointed at Momiji's, who was smiling cheerily, blatantly unafraid.

"Kyo-kyo could ask Yuki for help! He's good at puzzles and…."

Kyo dusted off his hands and proceeded to ignore the hole in the wall. He pointed again.

"Kyo, my love, what has done this to you? You've gone completely maaaaaaaaa…..d."

Kagura made a nice clean hole, thought Kyo, smiling at this accomplishment. For the third time, he pointed.

Ritsu stood shakily up, head bowed in shame. His slim hands quivered as they were raised imploringly towards Kyo.

"I'M SOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyyyyy……………"

It was getting noticeably drafty.

Kyo groaned, these people were no help at all. Ayame's head wasn't hard enough, Momiji's actions were inexcusable, Kagura had failed him the first time and was entirely unhelpful the second, and Ritsu was always useless. He hardly expected any help from Hatori, who had become statuesque with anger and shock, so that left Kisa, Hiro and Hatsuharu.

"Kisa! Please help meee," he pleaded, his face looking up at her, eyes doing the puppy-dog dance. The sight, capable of scaring a half-starved bear from a connoisseur chef's campsite, affected Kisa in an unexpected manner. The terror that enveloped her as Kyo maniacally laughed and cried and growled, sent her over the human edge. With a puff of orange-tinged smoke she disappeared. As the smoke cleared, an enraged ball of black and orange fur leapt out and started to maul Kyo with it's claws.

"Aaaaaggghhh! Help, Kisa's gone mad!" screamed Kyo.

Haru sighed, "She's not the only one," he said to himself. He stood slowly, fists clenched into balls at his sides. He was too late though; Hiro had already joined the fray. A ball of flailing arms and legs (and claws and paws) rolled jauntily past him. Sounds of hissing, yelling and swearing rent the air and someone's thoroughly ripped sock flew out, hit the wall with a slap, and slid to the floor.

Haru sighed again, and rolled up his sleeves as the fight rolled past him for the second time. He dipped his hands in, grabbed a furious ball of fur in one, and a thrashing leg in the other. Pulling them out, he revealed a severely scratched Kyo screaming at him to let go of his hair and an equally angry Hiro yelling at him to put him down. He obliged on both accounts.

When they picked themselves up, and Hiro managed to put his surroundings into focus again due to landing on his head, they looked around for Kisa. The room was empty except for them, but there seemed to be an addition to the family of strangely shaped holes in the wall.

"Kisaaa! Come back!" yelled Hiro, running from the room. Hatori followed silently, with stiff and robotic movements. Haru grinned and ran his fingers through his contrasting hair as he watched them go. He turned to Kyo, who by this time sitting curled up in a corner, the rubix cube lying in the middle of the floor.

Haru picked it up and threw it at him casually. Kyo flinched as it bounced off his shoulder and span on one corner in front of him, before landing on one side, revealing a mostly yellow surface to the ceiling, bar the two reds sections in the top left-hand corner.

"You could try talking to it. I'm sure you of all people could fix it's problems. Failing that, go crucify yourself for all I care," said Haru, leaving the room. (1)

(1) I'm sure by now you've all noticed the 'leaving from the room' thing. I'd just like to point out that at no point was a door used.

Kyo picked himself up from the ground and yelled through the hole Haru had produced in his leaving. "That doesn't even make sense! It'd bloody impossible to put the last nail in!"

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Kyo was out of options. Suffice it to say, the cube counselling had not gone well.

"_I think it's time we talked," said Kyo._

" _. . . . . . ."_

"_I know it's been hard. It's been a difficult time for me too…"_

" _. . . . . . . . . . ."_

"…_But if you'd just tell me, I could solve all your problems, and mine."_

" _. . . . ?"_

"_If you'd just tell me how to decipher your weird alien code, I could save the planet! I could save humanity, not that they deserve it! They all deserted me, left me alone in this house to rot! But they won't get to me! And neither will you! Alien scum!"_

" _. . ."_

"_Oh yes! Laugh NOW, but what if I do _this!" _Kyo proceeded to hurl the rubix cube around the room, and eventually right out the window._

He would not be taking Hatsuharu's advice again anytime soon.

Kyo groaned and rubbed his eyes, _time, _he thought, _for bed._ He trundled outside in his socks, and searched amongst the undergrowth for the puzzle box. He found it in the grass about ten feet from the window and as usual, it was immaculate.

_Maybe I'll think of something in the morning, _he contemplated as he walked up the stairs in his now dirty socks. Just as he was about to open the door to his bedroom, Tohru came out carrying a bid pile of laundry. Before he could move, she bumped into him and POOF! When the cloud of dust had settled, it revealed a very angry orange cat standing on tip-toes with it's fur enduring to touch the ceiling.

"Kyo-kun! I'm sooo sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going," said Tohru, kneeling.

Kyo ignored her because behind her he could see Yuki. In his room.

"What are you doing in my room, rat-boy! First you disappear on some trip, and then, when we are finally deemed fit enough for your presence, you decide I'M the one who most wants to see you!" he hissed furiously.

Yuki looked down at him disdainfully. "I don't want to be anywhere near you, idiot. I was just talking to Tohru while she was doing your laundry. I _do _like the lime-green underwear, by the way. Pick it yourself, did you?"

Kyo would have jumped him then, but Tohru was in the way, and the fact that he was about 25 inches tall also didn't help. He settled for spitting and hissing, with some ear-flattened growls and claw sheathing and unsheathing for emphasis.

Yuki just looked at him before ignoring his displays of hatred and utter contempt. His gaze wandered to a colourful box on the floor, he picked it up thoughtfully.

"Don't touch that!" snarled Kyo, shaking his paw in a vain attempt to stop him. Tohru looked round at Yuki and smiled at the sight of the game.

"Hey, I used to play that a lot when I was a kid! You have to put all the same coloured little squares to their own side. It used to keep me busy for hours, but my mom could do it in minutes," she said.

Yuki regarded it's glossy surface for a few seconds, before twisting the box round in a concentrated fashion. He stopped, frowned, then continued.

"Don't do that! You'll mess up all the progress I made, It took me da – hou – um, a…while."

Yuki ignored him, and so did Tohru, much to his annoyance. His annoyance increased at the sight of Yuki's fingers flying around the rubix cube, effortlessly.

_He'll never do it, it's impossible! _he thought.

Yuki smiled slightly, and his fingers sped up, his nails making small clacking noises on the boxes hard surface. Kyo only grumbled as he laid his head on his paws.

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Shigure woke up from his day-long nap of recovery. He sleepily wandered down the stairs and went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee (or other caffeinated beverage).

_I wonder how Kyo is getting on with that little game I gave him. He seems to be taking it quite seriously. _He thought as he poured himself a glass of cold, leftover coffee.

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Kyo could only stare blankly at the perfectly solved rubix cube in front of him. Something inside of him seemed to have stopped working. A few hours later, he slowly keeled over, straight-backed like a tree fallen in the woods. His head landed with a thump along side the puzzle box; eyes continuing to stare at it's polished exterior. The cube stared back, smugly.

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**Author's ramblings cont:** This is the end! Obviously. Please review, I love you all! I really enjoyed writing it, so I hope you enjoyed reading it. Once again, REVIEW. (Please, I'd really appreciate it)

This is Squibakou signing out.


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